Jane picked up the phone as she ripped the envelope open. “Hallo, Mum! I just got home.”

Jane drove to the hospital and parked, with the unopened letter from Peter on the seat beside her. She turned the lights off and reached for the white manila envelope with her name hastily scrawled on it.

It contained one sheet of her own notepaper. Sweetheart, she read, I took on board everything you said this morning. I can’t quite deal with you, or the pressures of your work, and at the same time get myself sorted out. I am sorry to do it this way, but I think in the long run it will be for the best, for both of us. I still care for you, but I can’t see any future in our relationship. Maybe when we’ve had a few weeks apart we can meet and have a talk. Until then, take care of yourself.

It was signed simply Peter. She laid it face down on the seat and sighed, then realized that there was a postscript on the back.

I’m staying with one of my builders. When I get an address I’ll let you know where I am, but if you need me you can reach me at the yard. Then he had put in brackets: (Not Scotland Yard!).

Jane opened the door slowly, but remained sitting. Was it always going to be like this? Peter wasn’t the first, she’d never been able to keep a relationship going for more than a few months. She flicked her compact open and delved into her bag for a comb, stared at her reflection in the oval mirror for a long time. She looked a wreck, her hair needed washing and the make-up she had dashed on in a hurry that morning had long since disappeared. She studied the lines around her eyes and from her nose to her lips, the deep frown lines between her brows. She fished in her bag and brought out her lipstick, closed the mirror and ran the lipstick around her mouth without looking at it. She was so used to freshening up in a hurry that she didn’t need a mirror.

Locking the car, she walked briskly towards the bright hospital entrance. An anxious-looking woman in a wheelchair was holding an unlit cigarette. Jane smiled at her and she gave a conspiratorial grin.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got a match, have you?”

“Yes, love.” Jane took a half-used book of matches from her pocket. “You keep them, and mind you don’t get cold. It’s freezing out.”

As Jane headed for the night nurse at reception, she thought to herself, So what if you’re going home to an empty flat? You’ve done that most of your adult life. By the time she reached the desk she had persuaded herself that she preferred it that way.